Best Restaurant of 2008 contender
Telephone: 076 289314
Open: 9am to 9pm
Address: 48/5 Sai Yuan Road Moo 7 , Rawai, Phuket, Thailand 83130
Style: International/Thai/Retail
Price range: Inexpensive. American breakfast (95 baht) German breakfast (130 baht) super breakfast (155 baht) eggs up, over easy, hard, poached or scrambled homemade steak and kidney pie (140 baht) bratwurst sausage (150 baht) grilled salmon steak (275 baht) fish and chips (185 baht) spaghetti carbonara (125 baht) pizzas, bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich (105 baht) texas style hamburger (115 baht) english wiltshire back bacon sandwich on baget (110 baht) tuna on toast (95 baht) tenderloin of beef (595 baht) jumbo t-bone (525 baht) sauteed lemon chicken breast (165 baht) alabama pecan pie with icecream (120 baht) fresh fruit plate (80 baht) battered fried bananas (80 baht) milk shakes (75 baht) singha beer (55/75 baht) heineken (80/100 baht)
Specialty: Ribs and beef and breakfasts from all over. Home to Longhorn Saloon and Grill.
What Phuketwan says: Don's Cafe is a metaphor for Phuket and fast growth. It began as a small, appealing cafe with a quirky approach and grew and grew until it was a large cafe/mall with a supermarket, a delicatessen, a bar and assorted other parts attached. Don's outlets in other parts of Thailand opened, too. As with Phuket itself, plenty of people are happy with Don's Mall the way it is now. Others hanker for the old cafe. It's the stuff of island legend that Don, a former NASA aerospace engineer, created the restaurant with the help of a group of dispossessed friends after the 1997 economic crisis. Starting with no restaurant skills, they asked customers for home-cooked favorite recipes. It was something of a mystery as to why, when so many other restaurants opened then perished, Don's Cafe flourished. Perhaps it was the quality of the comfort food. Perhaps it was the cross-table banter of guests jam-packed into a small space. Perhaps it was the way the waitresses were so vague as to be funny. Today, a few years on from the makeover, Don's is decidedly different. Phuketwan comes in a party of four for lunch. Out the front, an ATM machine sits between the supermarket and the delicatessen and butcher's shop. In growing larger, Don's appears to have lost its island ambience, and perhaps its innocence, too. The brand, just like Phuket, may be a commercial success, but at a cost. We asked for a fresh young coconut. Sorry, no coconuts. Now, Phuketwan has long argued that every restaurant on a tropical holiday island must always have fresh young coconuts available. Nothing is more redolent of escape from the concrete chasms to Paradise than to be able to order, drink and eat a fresh young coconut. Any restaurant without one scores a scowl of disappointment from Phuketwan. Don's, how could you? The three Thai meals ordered for lunch all receive big thumbs up. But the grilled salmon and salad is overcooked and the french fries are dry and almost inedible. Phuketwan suddenly yearns for the meatloaf and mashed, just like mother used to make. It may still be in the menu somewhere, a bit lost, because the focus these days is more on the ribs and beef than the once-beloved home-style cooking. Three out of four is not a bad score. But no coconuts? We'd like the old island ambience and innocence back, please. No coconut, no cigar.
How to find it: Head for Rawai from Chalong circle and turn right at the minimart. Keep winding along the road until you spy Don's Mall on the left. The mall is closer to Nai Harn than Chalong.
Parking: As a Texan might say, up front and out back.
Phuketwan restaurant reviewers pay for their meals. If someone else does, we tell you so
Telephone: 076 289314
Open: 9am to 9pm
Address: 48/5 Sai Yuan Road Moo 7 , Rawai, Phuket, Thailand 83130
Style: International/Thai/Retail
Price range: Inexpensive. American breakfast (95 baht) German breakfast (130 baht) super breakfast (155 baht) eggs up, over easy, hard, poached or scrambled homemade steak and kidney pie (140 baht) bratwurst sausage (150 baht) grilled salmon steak (275 baht) fish and chips (185 baht) spaghetti carbonara (125 baht) pizzas, bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich (105 baht) texas style hamburger (115 baht) english wiltshire back bacon sandwich on baget (110 baht) tuna on toast (95 baht) tenderloin of beef (595 baht) jumbo t-bone (525 baht) sauteed lemon chicken breast (165 baht) alabama pecan pie with icecream (120 baht) fresh fruit plate (80 baht) battered fried bananas (80 baht) milk shakes (75 baht) singha beer (55/75 baht) heineken (80/100 baht)
Specialty: Ribs and beef and breakfasts from all over. Home to Longhorn Saloon and Grill.
What Phuketwan says: Don's Cafe is a metaphor for Phuket and fast growth. It began as a small, appealing cafe with a quirky approach and grew and grew until it was a large cafe/mall with a supermarket, a delicatessen, a bar and assorted other parts attached. Don's outlets in other parts of Thailand opened, too. As with Phuket itself, plenty of people are happy with Don's Mall the way it is now. Others hanker for the old cafe. It's the stuff of island legend that Don, a former NASA aerospace engineer, created the restaurant with the help of a group of dispossessed friends after the 1997 economic crisis. Starting with no restaurant skills, they asked customers for home-cooked favorite recipes. It was something of a mystery as to why, when so many other restaurants opened then perished, Don's Cafe flourished. Perhaps it was the quality of the comfort food. Perhaps it was the cross-table banter of guests jam-packed into a small space. Perhaps it was the way the waitresses were so vague as to be funny. Today, a few years on from the makeover, Don's is decidedly different. Phuketwan comes in a party of four for lunch. Out the front, an ATM machine sits between the supermarket and the delicatessen and butcher's shop. In growing larger, Don's appears to have lost its island ambience, and perhaps its innocence, too. The brand, just like Phuket, may be a commercial success, but at a cost. We asked for a fresh young coconut. Sorry, no coconuts. Now, Phuketwan has long argued that every restaurant on a tropical holiday island must always have fresh young coconuts available. Nothing is more redolent of escape from the concrete chasms to Paradise than to be able to order, drink and eat a fresh young coconut. Any restaurant without one scores a scowl of disappointment from Phuketwan. Don's, how could you? The three Thai meals ordered for lunch all receive big thumbs up. But the grilled salmon and salad is overcooked and the french fries are dry and almost inedible. Phuketwan suddenly yearns for the meatloaf and mashed, just like mother used to make. It may still be in the menu somewhere, a bit lost, because the focus these days is more on the ribs and beef than the once-beloved home-style cooking. Three out of four is not a bad score. But no coconuts? We'd like the old island ambience and innocence back, please. No coconut, no cigar.
How to find it: Head for Rawai from Chalong circle and turn right at the minimart. Keep winding along the road until you spy Don's Mall on the left. The mall is closer to Nai Harn than Chalong.
Parking: As a Texan might say, up front and out back.
Phuketwan restaurant reviewers pay for their meals. If someone else does, we tell you so
You could say that Don's has been mauled. There must be plenty of satisfied customers too because the place seems to attract locals, although sometimes they seem to be trying to avoid each other.
Posted by angelfire on August 17, 2008 09:21